Food is a basic human right. Yet approximately 1.5 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day, and every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger. Poverty, hunger, and malnutrition silently kill people and take away their ability to work and learn. So, adequate food, including access to land to produce food, is needed for survival, ensuring constitutional human rights, and achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (BBC world service UK, 2001).Women, climate change and food security
Poverty is caused by the lack of exchange entitlement in a market- economy. Gainful employment is the principal
challenge for the poor and the main focus for poverty alleviation
PARVEZ BABUL
Food is a basic human right. Yet approximately 1.5 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day, and every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger. Poverty, hunger, and malnutrition silently kill people and take away their ability to work and learn. So, adequate food, including access to land to produce food, is needed for survival, ensuring constitutional human rights, and achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (BBC world service UK, 2001).
Many rural women come to the cities in Bangladesh for livelihood, but the intersection of gender inequality and poverty limits their opportunities. They live inhuman lives, both in their villages and in cities, without food, shelter, and other basic necessities. Where there is no money, there is no purchasing power. So we need effective and sustainable programmes to give such women and their families access to income-generating activities and therefore access to adequate food.
Poor people need a sustainable livelihood as provided by small-scale sustainable farming. Despite the increases in food grain production, around half of the population of Bangladesh remains below the food-based poverty line. Bangladesh will face a major problem in the next 40 years since production of rice will decrease by at least 8per cent, and wheat by 32per cent, while the population will increase by 50-75 million (IPCC 1990). According to the World Bank, approximately 33 million of the 150 million people in Bangladesh cannot afford an average daily intake of more than 1,800 calories, which is the minimum standard for nutrition. For the people in most developing countries, the daily calorie average is 2,828. In Bangladesh, that average is only 2,190 (World Bank).
Women are most vulnerable due to climate change in Bangladesh..
Poor women are often the first to suffer malnutrition in the family. This has repercussions on their health, productivity, quality of life, and survival. In addition, climate change will affect availability, accessibility, utilization, and systems stability of food. World Food Programme (WFP) mentioned in its report of 2009 that, in Bangladesh, 46per cent of pregnant women, 39per cent of non-pregnant women, and 40per cent of adolescent girls, suffer from anemia because of depleted iron stores during pregnancy and lactation, a consequence of insufficient intake of foods rich in iron and folic acid (WFP 2009).
Helen Keller International (HKI)-Bangladesh has been working to ensure food security and empowerment of women through different programmes. Emily Hillenbrand of HKI-Bangladesh states: Gender discrimination is an underlying, structural cause of Bangladeshs alarmingly high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition. Their malnutrition is related to their limited control over economic assets, exclusion from household decisions, and restricted mobility.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) agrees that poverty is a major determinant of chronic household food insecurity. Global Hunger Index 2010 of IFPRI mentioned that malnutrition among children under two years of age is one of the leading challenges in reducing global hunger and can cause lifelong harm to health, productivity, and earning potential (IFPRI, 2010).
The burden of child malnutrition could be cut by 25-36per cent by providing universal preventive health services and nutrition interventions for children under two and their mothers during pregnancy and lactation.
The health of women, specifically mothers, is crucial to reducing child malnutrition. Mothers who were poorly nourished as girls tend to give birth to underweight babies, perpetuating the cycle of malnutrition. Nutrition interventions should be targeted towards girls and women throughout the life cycle, and especially as adolescents before they become pregnant, the report added (IFPRI, 2010).
Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger has been selected as the target of MDG One. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
On the other hand, on September 25th 2015 (This year), countries have adopted a set of global goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. In fact, most of the 17 SDGs are interlinked and achievable. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and people like you and me.
Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh Dr. Muhammad Yunus said: Economics has a relationship with peace. This means a poor economy is interlinked with poverty, and familial, social, and political unrest. As a result, poverty hinders our development and economic growth, and creates obstacles on the road to achieving progress, prosperity, sustainable development, food security, adequate nutrition, gender equality, empowerment of women, peace, and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
It is wrong to imagine that climate change is taking away attention from domestic causes. You can think in that way only if you think that climate change is merely about the negotiations, and that the negotiations are only international and not domestic. The climate change challenge is very much domestic. For example, there is much greater intensity, frequency, and velocity of cyclones now. Cyclone Aila this May killed [at least] 125 people and devastated the eastern coast [of India]. We are also seeing far higher levels of drought and flooding with, for example, flash floods in the deserts of Ladakh and Rajasthan, in areas where there is normally no rain, and the devastating Mumbai floods in 2005. So climate change is very much a domestic threat to the poor, whose very survival is threatened by these events.
The second reason we must address climate change domestically is that if we do not, we risk adopting policies that make climate change worse - for example, through building an agriculture that makes us more vulnerable, or the rapid expansion of highways without proper impact assessments).
Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen said: Poverty is caused by the lack of exchange entitlement in a market- economy. Gainful employment is the principal challenge for the poor and the main focus for poverty alleviation. Thus, strategies for poverty alleviation broadly encompass the redistribution and creation of assets in favor of the poor and give guarantee of employment at a reasonable wage and adoption of measures having direct benefit for the poor. This is possible when political leaders express their commitment to implement programs without corruption or discrimination.
In developing countries, because of poor womens marginalized status and dependence on local natural resources, their domestic burdens are increased; they feel an even greater burden of climate change. They are also underrepresented in decision-making about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and most critically, discussions and decisions about adaptation and mitigation.
Concerns about womens access to, control over, and ownership of land and resources have been raised over the years at different but inter-related levels. Land and environmental resources are central to the lives of people living in countries whose economic development and subsistence depends on the resources. With regard to environmental resources, womens access to and control over forests, water and wildlife has come into sharp focus as it has become clear that the performance of womens day-to-day chores is anchored on these resources. Making access to land and environmental resources equitable is one way to achieve development. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the need to promote gender equality and empower women, the need to alleviate poverty and ensure sustainable environmental management.
Literally speaking: an empty bag cannot stay standing. The bag has to be full with food in order to stand alone. In the light of that if we ensure optimum nutritious food for the women through ensuring their food security, and winning the war against climate change--they will give birth of healthy children to build a healthy and developed nation.
The writer is freelancer
